


And the mountain should crumble to the sea

by IaMcHrIsSi



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Talia is a tiger mom fight me, but don't worry he dies in this one, the Joker is his own content warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 13:51:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17829773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IaMcHrIsSi/pseuds/IaMcHrIsSi
Summary: The Joker gets Jason. Again.This time, however, Jason's mother disagrees with Jokers plans.





	And the mountain should crumble to the sea

**Author's Note:**

> Look at me happily ignoring canon! 
> 
> This fic accepts RHATO Rebirth until like, issue 12, and none of Bruce and Talia's current canon characterisation. Especially not things like RHATO 25 or Talia's appearance in Super Sons. I just think Talia is much more interesting if she's a badass, morally questionable but still very loving mother to her two sons Damian and Jason, you know? And Bruce is just a lot better as a, you know, actually decent father who cares about his kids. 
> 
> There's quite a few references in this fic to RHATO 9. If you haven't read it, Jason and the Outlaws go to Qurac to help Artemis on her quest, and Jason gets captured and put in a building from which he can see the warehouse he died in. He essentially spends the whole issue hallucinating a fifteen year old version of himself and talks to him, and also hallucinates killing the Joker. It is very sad and I'll never forgive Lobdell for not dealing properly with Jason's obvious trauma. At the end it turns out that Jason's capturers tortured him while he was disassociating, and he says that he didn't even notice it. Which... yeah. Let me to the idea that Jason would just be totally paralyzed with PTSD when faced with the Joker. 
> 
> Title from Stand By Me by Ben E King

When Jason opened his eyes, he knew this was it.

He was lying on the floor of what looked like a warehouse. Considering how much the cold had already seeped into his body despite the Red Hood armour, he'd been lying there for quite a while. His hands, arms, legs and feet were bound in a very professional manner that meant that he wasn't getting out of these bonds on his own.

Leaning over him was the Joker.

The world stopped. Jason didn't know how long he was lying there, staring at the Joker, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter at all, because he was dead. Because he was going to die, painfully, _again_ , and there was nothing that would change this fact.

The Joker was saying something. Jason saw his lips moving, but now sound seemed to get to him other than the rushing in his ears. Maybe it was better this way.

Jason was pretty sure he was hyperventilating. Not that it mattered, but he'd read somewhere that keeping track of one's breathing could help when having a panic attack. So. Hyperventilating.

It hadn't even been a bad day, he thought, almost hysterically. Probably hysterically. He was reliving the worst trauma of his life. He was allowed to be hysterical.

He'd had finished his last mission with the Artemis and Bizzaro, and seen them of when Artemis decided to have a long talk with Wonder Woman about Amazon business (Jason had pointedly not been invited, and very curious) and Bizzaro wanted to visit the friends he'd made in Qurac.

Then he'd had tea with Alfred, declined a dinner invitation to the manor, and everything had been just fine.

After that, there was a blank. The Joker had kidnapped him, obviously, but how he did it...

“Are you even listening?” The Joker asked. Apparently Jason's ears were working again. He immediately wanted to go back to when they weren't.

There was a flash of light in a corner. Was he hallucinating again? Probably. Maybe that wasn't a bad thing, though. He'd completely disassociated through that torture session in Qurac. Maybe he could do that again? Not that talking to his own brain's twisted recollection of a Robin him had been particularly fun, but it beat what was sure to come.

“You don't get to disappear now!” The Joker yelled, grinning manically. “We're going to have so much fun.”

Jason closed his eyes. Joker was going to kill him anyway. No point in looking at him while he did it.

A metallic screeching made him open his eyes again. Immediately he wished he'd kept them closed. In Joker's hands was a tire iron.

Jason wanted to scream. He wanted to fight, to disappear, to cry, to... _do something_ , anything. But it was as though his brain was disconnected from his body, as though he couldn't move a single muscle.

The Joker moved closer, lifting the tire iron slowly.

Then he stopped.

The tire iron fell from his hands, and he looked down to his chest. Jason followed his gaze and saw what looked like a sword poking through Joker's suit.

That didn't make much sense.

Then the sword disappeared, and a second later Joker's head fell to the floor. His body followed shortly afterward. Blood was spilling everywhere, red and heavy and real. Jason felt like that should worry him.

He wasn't sure he could feel anything but fear.

Then a figure stepped over the crumbled body. Dark hair, dark pants and a white blouse.

Dark eyes, warm and safe, entered his view.

“Are you injured, love?” Talia al Ghul asked.

Was this some sort of hallucination? A last comforting image before inevitable, painful death? But if he was to die anyway, why hadn't his mind allowed him the illusion of killing the Joker himself, like last time?

Warm hands cupped his face, and Jason felt the panic slow down a bit. He was shaking, he realized. Had he always been shaking?

“I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier. You're safe now.” Talia murmured in Arabic. She wiped some kind of wetness from his cheeks. Tears, probably, Jason realized. He hadn't noticed he'd been crying.

Jason closed his eyes for a second, saw the Joker leaning over him again and opened them immediately. Talia was a much safer image.

She moved to his hands, cutting through the bonds with practiced ease. Jason looked to were the Joker had stood. His corpse was still lying there, bloody and broken and so much smaller than the man had always seemed to be.

“Is he...?” He couldn't finish the question. His voice felt weird, broken and small. But Talia understood.

“He is dead. This man will never hurt you again. Later, when you feel better, we can burn his corpse together, to make sure he'll never return. You are free of him.” Talia promised.

Jason let out a shaky breath that turned into kind of sob. Then he was outright sobbing, lying there one the floor.

Talia abandoned the bonds on his legs and hugged him instead. He clung to her, like a small child might to it's mother when waking up from a nightmare. She let him.

After a long while, he calmed down enough to stop shaking.

“How did you know I was in trouble?” He asked. He didn't remember calling her today, or anything like that. She kept tabs on him, sure, but this was a very fast response, especially considering he was pretty sure she hadn't been in Gotham. She would have told him if that had been the case, and probably visited as well.

“I saw a report about the Joker being free. And you wouldn't answer your phone. It was an educated guess.” Talia didn't smile. There was blood on her blouse, he realized, stark against the probably really expensive white satin, but Talia didn't seem to care at all.

He looked her in the eyes.

“ _Thank you_.”

“Always, love.” Talia said, and now she was smiling.

She cut the bonds on his feet, just as a loud crash echoed through the warehouse. In a flash, Talia stood, the knife in one hand and a bloody sword in the other. Probably the sword she used to kill the Joker, Jason realized.

Before he could decide whether to get up himself Talia lowered her weapons.

“Beloved.” She said, a disapproving note in her voice.

Batman paid her no mind. He moved towards Jason so quickly Jason could have sworn he flew. But maybe that was just because his brain was still kind of loopy with panic.

“Are you hurt?” Batman demanded. Jason might have gotten mad at the tone if he didn't recognize the barely contained panic just under the surface.

He shook his head, not trusting his voice. Batmans hand were on his face in an instant, looking for injuries, checking him over. Then he hugged him.

Jason allowed himself to feel safe for a few moments. Talia and Bruce were there. Nothing could touch him.

Then Bruce helped him up. Jason honestly wasn't sure whether that was a good idea. His legs didn't feel like they'd carry him. But somehow, he stayed upright.

Batman finally seemed to ackowledge the corpse on the floor.

“Talia.” He growled.

“I do not tolerate threats to my children. Something had to be done, and I will not apologize for protecting my son.” Talia said, sounding not the least bit intimidated by Batman's foul mood. She never was, really. It was one of the things Jason loved about her.

For a long moment, there was silence in the room, while Jason tried to figure out a way to not let them fight. Not now. He's had a shitty enough day.

Then Batman... no, Bruce, sighed.

“Agent A wants me to pass on an invitation for a late dinner.” He said, and Jason grinned. Alfred's the best. “He says he'll open some fine wine for the occasion.”

Talia smiled, and moved towards Jason again.

“Who am I to say no to such an offer?” Talia said.

“He also said I'm not allowed to pick a fight with you today.” Bruce shook his head, seemingly trying to figure out how to react to all this, and put his hand on Jason's back. Jason leant into the touch. It made him feel real. Reminded him that this was not a hallucination.

Talia appeard on his other side, putting a warm hand on his arm. It felt good.

“Robin is spending the night with Superboy. He won't be there.” Bruce told Talia. Jason remembered Alfred mentioning that. The kid still insisted Jon wasn't his friend, which was all kinds of hilarious.

“It is good for him to make friends. Especially with someone as potentially powerful as that boy.” Talia said.

“Power should not be a factor in a friendship.” Bruce said, but there was no real heat behind it. Not like Talia and Bruce usually were.

Jason heard the growl of the batmobil. He smiled.

He was safe.

 

**Author's Note:**

> And they all go home and Alfred makes them sit down for dinner and it's awkward but it's okay because Jason is safe and both Bruce and Talia love him and they can be civil for his sake. Alfred will make sure of it. 
> 
> And Jason gets therapy, because seriously, he has terrible PTSD and he deserves to heal from that.


End file.
